Scriptural Polemics

The Qur'an and Other Religions

Mun'im Sirry

Interprets and contextualizes significant modern commentaries on the Qur'an

Focuses on five essential issues: scriptural supercessionism, exclusive salvation, charges regarding the Jewish and Christian falsification of revelation, criticisms over divine sonship and the Trinity, and cautions or prohibitions regarding the taking Jews and Christians as patrons, allies, or intimates

Scriptural Polemics

The Qur'an and Other Religions

Mun'im Sirry

Description

A number of passages in the Qur'an contain doctrinal and cultural criticism of Jews and Christians, from exclusive salvation and charges of Jewish and Christian falsification of revelation to cautions against the taking of Jews and Christians as patrons, allies, or intimates. Mun'im Sirry offers a novel exploration of these polemical passages, which have long been regarded as obstacles to peaceable interreligious relations, through the lens of twentieth-century tafsir (exegesis). He considers such essential questions as: How have modern contexts shaped Muslim reformers' understanding of the Qur'an, and how have the reformers' interpretations recontextualized these passages? Can the Qur'an's polemical texts be interpreted fruitfully for interactions among religious communities in the modern world?

Sirry also reflects on the various definitions of apologetic or polemic as relevant sacred texts and analyzes reformist tafsirs with careful attention to argument, literary context, and rhetoric in order to illuminate the methods, positions, and horizons of the exegeses. Scriptural Polemics provides both a critical engagement with the tafsirs and a lucid and original sounding of Qur'anic language, logic, and dilemmas, showing how the dynamic and varied reformist intepretations of these passages open the way for a less polemical approach to other religions.

Scriptural Polemics

The Qur'an and Other Religions

Mun'im Sirry

Author Information

Mun'im Sirry, Assistant Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame

Mun'im Sirry is Assistant Professor at the Department of Theology and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His articles have appeared in several peer-reviewed journals, including Arabica, BSOAS, Interpretation, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Journal of Semitic Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, The Muslim World, Studia Islamica, and Der Welt desIslams.

Scriptural Polemics

The Qur'an and Other Religions

Mun'im Sirry

Reviews and Awards

"Through careful analysis of five original, related, but never-compared case studies, Sirry expands what others have argued about the mandate for a sustained, interreligious focus on creedal and practical differences within the Abrahamic fold, not just in the Middle East but across the Indian Ocean, including and especially in Indonesia. This study marks a welcome advance into contextualized dialogue. It offers ground-level awareness of challenges as well as promises to all researchers and practitioners of monotheistic collaboration toward a higher, collective good." - Bruce L. Lawrence, Duke University

"This volume is an important contribution to understanding the impact of the key polemical Qur'?nic passages about Judaism and Christianity that shaped Muslim theology of the 'other.' Sirry's meticulous reading of the Qur'?nic commentaries to expound this theology is thoroughly grounded in both the classical as well as the modernist-reformist commentaries. At every step of the evolving thesis, he is in total command of his materials and the academic methodology required to establish the validity of his approach as inclusively and critically as possible. The inclusion of Shi'ite materials, and thorough familiarity with Western scholarship on the Qur'?n, in addition to selecting the exegetes from different parts of the Islamic world, render the work indispensable for anyone wishing to examine the Muslim religious polemics and its production under various social-political contexts today." - Abdulaziz Sachedina, George Mason University